The Houtan Scholarship Foundation (HSF) - http://www.houtan.org/ offers scholarships to students from all origins, Iranian and non-Iranian, who have outstanding academic performance and a proven interest in Iran's heritage, civilization, culture, and language.
What is meant by "interest in Iran's heritage, civilization, culture, and language"? How to demonstrate this?
HSF was founded to support people who aim at spreading the understanding of Iran's culture and heritage to wider audiences. Publishing articles, interviews, seminars, and other forms of sharing information about Iran will be considered. Applicants will need to provide documented proof of such events, such as a video of the seminar or a magazine clipping, to name a couple of examples.
An award of $3500 per year is to pursue a graduate school education for the selected scholarship awardee.
The scholarship application deadline is June 1 that precedes the award year.
Criteria:
- The applicant needs to have a working knowledge of Parsi and demonstrate an active interest in Iranian literature, history, culture, and heritage.
- The applicant must currently be attending or expect to attend an accredited graduate school in the United States.
- The applicant must have excellent academic performance or a significant increase in academic performance over his/her academic career.
- Financial need is a factor in deciding the scholarship awardee.
Selection of Scholarship Recipients:
- The scholarship will be granted to a qualified graduate student, regardless of area of study; the scholarship will be forwarded directly to the graduate institution.
- After the committee has reviewed the application and other documents, the finalists will be informed by email or mail.
- Each finalist must complete an interview, by phone or in person, with Mina Houtan, Ph.D., Chairperson, and Founder of the Houtan Scholarship Foundation. The interview is the Foundation's first move in establishing a relationship with the learner.
- The recipient will be selected from the finalists' pool based on submitted documents, the interview, and financial need; the recipient will be notified by email or mail.
- As soon as selected, the awardees need to confirm the scholarship notice's receipt and contact the Foundation by email within a month. Missing this deadline will result in losing the scholarship.
Re-application Criteria:
- If contact data remains the same within one application year, there is no need to apply again.
- Submit all grades following the acceptance of the scholarship.
- The candidate must show a continued active interest in Iranian history, heritage, literature, and culture following the scholarship's receipt. Interest must be proved with proper documentation.
- Applicants must apply by the deadline. Re-application will be evaluated in comparison with the new pool of candidates.
Deadline: June 1
Notification and Finalist Interviews: June 15 – June 30
Selection of Recipient: July 1
To apply for the Houtan scholarship, students need to fill in the application form - http://www.houtan.org/apply/.
We would also like to present the profiles of some previous Houtan scholarship awardees, but it was not possible to find any such information on the web.